


you are the moon that breaks the night

by dykeofthehunt



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (i think??), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Angst, Character Study, F/F, canon-typical mentions of violence, lots of pondering of death, plot fill-in, post-buried daisy, season 4, very vaguely implied sexual content (very vague)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dykeofthehunt/pseuds/dykeofthehunt
Summary: Basira always knows just what Daisy needs.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	you are the moon that breaks the night

**Author's Note:**

> title is from howl by florence and the machine (a very daisy song)

Basira always knows just what Daisy needs. 

The night that Jon pulls her from the Buried, Daisy needs space. Basira doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t hesitate to speed with all the windows down. She knows without asking where Daisy needs to go, and knows not to follow when she stumbles out of the car as soon as it’s parked, sucking in needy lungfuls of cold March air. Daisy’s legs refuse to take her further than a few wobbling steps into the grass, so she collapses there on the edge of the wide-open field, tearing the blades with how tight she grabs at them. The world spins around her. The dark sky with the full moon dangling in its jaws taunts her from far, far above. She doesn’t realize she’s crying until the quiet  _ thump _ of Basira’s door shakes her out of the trance she’d tipped head-first into, staring up at the moon and letting rough sobs wrench themselves from her chest. 

Basira doesn’t say anything. She just sits in the grass a few feet off, looking out at the stars. Daisy is infinitely grateful that she doesn’t once look her way. They just sit there: silent, unmoving. A part of her is glad for it, relishing in the way the air is sharp and fresh in her lungs and the sky endless and full of stars. Another part of her stirs, restless, in the bottom of her belly. She can’t stop herself from thinking the full moon is perfect for a chase, casting just enough light to wash the world out grey and shadowed. The kind of light that makes blood look-- 

Daisy shakes the thought free, a sudden, violent motion, disgusted with herself for even letting herself think about Hunting. Basira starts, a hand automatically reaching for Daisy, but she stops short an inch from her hand.  _ Go on,  _ Daisy wants to tell her,  _ it’s not like anything’s changed.  _ But that would be a lie, and both of them know it. Instead, she smiles, thin-lipped, and Basira’s hand makes featherlight contact. She shudders, hard, and bites down on the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood. 

Her touch is soft, so soft it’s as if she’s afraid of crushing Daisy beneath the meager weight of her fingers. Daisy doesn’t tell her it still makes her feel like she’s choking.

The first few nights, she doesn’t sleep. She can’t sit still long enough, her restless legs won’t stop bouncing, fingers won’t stop fiddling with the nearest thing.  _ Daisy _ , Basira whispers in the soft light of the sunset, arms twisted around her waist. Chin heavy on her shoulder. Breath ghosting across her neck. Heartbeat slow and steady. Daisy notices all of these things, catalogues them under  _ suffocation that is worth the panic.  _ If Basira notices the way she has to force herself to relax and lean back into her, she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she mistakes it for a forced suppression of fight-or-flight, a chained dog finally submitting to soft hands. 

Her hands  _ are _ soft. They’re careful and sure in the way they touch her when Basira finds her sitting on the shower floor, water streaming over her shaking body. She works shampoo through her hair and Daisy closes her eyes, shaking gasps giving way to even, measured breaths. Basira helps her into pajamas afterwards and shushes Daisy’s whispered apologies as she leads her to bed, crawling beneath the blankets and holding her close. 

For the first time in days, Daisy sleeps. She falls asleep without ceremony, without fidgeting or biting back panic. She just focuses on the warmth of Basira’s body against her and drifts off. 

Of course, it doesn’t take long for the nightmares to come. Daisy wakes with a start, her mouth tasting of blood and dirt both. Suddenly all too aware of the blanket’s weight, she kicks herself free and crawls from the bed, crashing to the floor unceremoniously, panting. The urge to run makes her skin crawl, her bones threatening to come free all on their own if she doesn’t obey. 

So she runs. She throws open every door between her and the night air and runs out barefoot, feeling fire begin to catch in her belly. It’s the heat that stops her, the way her blood begins to sing wild and terrible beneath her skin. All at once, the horrible realization spreads through her and Daisy stops dead in the middle of the street, nauseous with the sudden stillness. The Hunt calls to her, tugs at her. Its song makes her jaws ache, her skin prickle. A car tears around the corner and slams on the breaks as soon as its headlights catch her form, skidding to a stop just inches away. 

_ Daisy! _

Basira’s voice snaps her out of it, startling her back into the cold silence of the night. Daisy turns her head and sees her there, in the building’s doorway, eyes wild with fear. For her or of her, it doesn’t matter. The driver’s halfway to climbing out of the car, shouting curses, when she finally breaks and closes the distance between them with unsteady steps, throwing herself into Basira’s arms. 

When her legs fail, Basira sinks to the ground with her. She runs slow, gentle fingers through Daisy’s hair until her tears subside, and a while after.  _ I’m here, _ she says, and Daisy realizes she doesn’t have anything left to chase. 

The realization that she doesn’t have to run anymore colors the rest of the night a dull haze. Basira sits with her at the kitchen table, hands curled around a cooling cup of coffee as she tries, valiantly, to stay awake. She ends up dozing off as the sunrise begins to make the sky turn heather grey. Daisy watches her, then, for what feels like the first time. Sure, she’d watched Basira before, catalogued the way she moved and what her weaknesses were, how she fought in case Daisy needed to take her down. Hunter’s instinct. That’s all it had been, predator watching prey. This is different.

Basira’s eyelashes are long, she notices. Her hands are careful even in sleep, loose around the painted ceramic of her mug. For so long, Daisy had regarded her as both her closest friend and most deadly enemy, the one most likely to succeed in sticking a knife between her ribs. The rest of the force wouldn’t come close enough to hurt her - whether scared of her easy violence or her Section, Daisy wasn’t sure, but it suited her purposes well enough. Basira, though, she was different. She saw what Daisy was, saw the kind of things she’d done up close and personal, and never once wavered. Daisy had feared her for that, a thrilling mixture of fear and devotion, like chasing down her own destruction. If anyone was going to kill her, it would’ve been Basira. 

Basira had filled her veins with the liquid fire she so desperately craved. The Hunt sang thick in her bones the days they were together, but more than that - Elias had called Basira her  _ last connection to humanity.  _ She hadn’t pulled the trigger. Couldn’t let her die. Daisy shudders at the thought of what she may have become if she had. What inhuman monster, unchained dog of a thing she’d be without Basira. Elias was right. Deep beneath the blood-song and the thrill of Hunting, there was a piece of her so human it hurt. That’s the piece that blooms within her chest now, watching the slow sunrise paint Basira’s sleeping form a gentle pink. Far from the strong and sure way violence called to her, this is delicate. Soft, even. Before the coffin, this would’ve been weakness, something to be stomped out and destroyed. Even if Elias was right, she never would’ve admitted to herself that she could love. But now? She has nothing more to do but love. It’s love that’s saving her from the Hunt, not anything else. 

It strikes Daisy just then that the weakness in her limbs, the aching pangs of hunger that never quite seem to fade are more than just the aftershocks of being held deep within the Buried. She’s going to die if she doesn’t Hunt. The thing that calls to her darkest instincts is something far greater than her, and if she isn’t serving its purposes, she is a faulty thing to be disposed of. Even a few hours ago, this kind of realization might’ve been enough to throw her back to the dogs. Now, though, with love blooming careful and kind in her chest, Daisy finds herself coming to terms with it. She knew Basira would be the end of her from the start, she just never expected it to be like this. 

When the light drifts its way across Basira’s face, lighting her golden and beautiful, she stirs.  _ Hi, _ she says when she finds Daisy looking at her, a smile catching the corners of her mouth, then:  _ come to bed? _

Basira falls asleep again, this time holding Daisy close. Neither the blanket nor the weight of her arms are suffocating. The sureness of her presence, the warmth of her skin and softness of her touch make the fragile thing in Daisy’s chest grow stronger with every breath until it fills her from toe to tip with brightness. Daisy lies there, somewhere neither awake nor asleep, and thinks just before sleep comes to claim her that if she must die to be in love with Basira, then it’s a death worth starving for. 

In the early days, when March’s chill is just starting to give way to the hesitant warmth of spring, she and Basira split their days between the Archives and reacquainting themselves with each other. They’d never truly gotten the chance to know each other beyond the bounds of hunt-chase-catch, the skin beneath the blood and sweat. Rather, Daisy had never found herself drawn to anything beyond that. It strikes her occasionally, as she surrounds herself with people - friends? - that she had strayed so far from what it means to be a person that it’s almost a miracle there’s anything left in her besides the Hunt.

There isn’t much left, on the worst days. Some days, it’s all she can do to curl up in one of the rooms of the Archives while someone works a few feet off, starting listlessly at the wall. Thoughts of Hunting consume her, then, despite her best efforts. The sick thrill of the chase, the blood of the catch. She feels sick when these thoughts come unbidden, forcing herself to think about Basira instead - her smile, her laugh, the way she wakes on instinct when Daisy’s nightmares leave her gasping and clawing at the night. 

It’s one such night that finds her in the bathroom, scissors held in a shaking hand and clumps of hair scattered across the floor. She’d woken to it twisted around her neck, hot and prickly and choking her to death. Basira pushes the door open, rubbing sleep from her eyes with one hand and reaching for Daisy with the other.  _ It’s okay,  _ she whispers, holding her tight when Daisy slumps against her, shoulders shaking with sobs,  _ I’m here.  _

Basira holds her until her breath comes even and slow and then sits her down in the kitchen to finish the job. She knows without asking what Daisy needs. The hair falls from her head with rhythmic snips, later the soothing buzz of clippers. The tears don’t stop until near the end, when her head feels so light that Daisy thinks she might float off into the sky if not for Basira’s presence behind her, familiar and grounding. 

When the clippers shut off and the towel is pulled from her shoulders, Daisy doesn’t move. Basira says something cheerful and soft like  _ all done _ or perhaps  _ you look lovely, _ and she doesn’t respond. She says  _ Daisy? _ like there’s nothing else in the world and comes to kneel before her, hand coming up to cup her cheek. 

Her hand is soft and warm. Calloused, but gentle. She brushes a drying tear from Daisy’s cheek with her thumb and smiles. The now-familiar brightness blooms warm in Daisy’s chest, and Basira knows again what she needs without asking. 

Her lips are even softer, and Daisy feels for a moment as if she might start crying all over again. Not from the choking, or even from Basira’s sure hands and gentle kindness as the tears, but for love. She slips slow, hesitant fingers into Basira’s hair and holds on, heart fluttering like a bird behind her ribs.  _ Daisy, _ Basira sighs when they finally part after what feels like both a year and hardly a second.  _ Basira, _ she answers.  _ Come to bed? _

They go, hand in careful hand. Basira holds her close and runs her fingers through what’s left of Daisy’s hair, and there is no need between them. There’s no quiet desperation, no desire to escape, to be somewhere and something else. Just Basira. 

The next time the Hunt tries to pry her apart, singing its blood-song and making her acutely aware of the fact that her canines are just a bit too sharp, Daisy thinks of Basira’s lips on hers. The hunger gnawing her bones doesn’t quite disappear, but it fades enough for her to feel more awake than she has in weeks. Deep beneath the Buried, Daisy rediscovered her person-ness, kindling a desire to be free from brutality and bloodthirst for good, but that wasn’t enough on its own. Despite her best efforts, her resolve had been slowly chipping away, the ruinous ache of nothingness deep inside threatening to tear her apart.

Now, she has something to cling to. Basira had known, deep down, that Daisy was reaching out to find an anchor to hold tight to. Martin had filled Jon’s office with tapes to bring him back, anchoring him with the thing he needed most. Basira had done the same.

Her days become colored both by the warmth of Basira’s kisses - in the cobwebbed corners of the Archives, in the market, in Basira’s apartment that’s more theirs than hers by now - and the weakness that doesn’t ever quite leave her limbs, an ever-present reminder of the price of Basira’s love. Not love, quite - Daisy’s sure she’d have that no matter how sharp her teeth, how inhuman her eyes - but perhaps tenderness. The way Basira looks at her is a welcome respite from the pity that hounds her everywhere else. There’s nothing but love there, where Jon and Melanie look at her like some suffering, broken thing. A caged animal, beaten and just waiting for a chance to snap. Like she’s delicate, and Daisy hates that the most. The anger, though, is dangerous. She forces herself to let go of it, letting it drain from her like the swirl of water in the sink. The letting-go is a strange feeling, and though it leaves her feeling hollow and shaky like the back end of an adrenaline rush, it also finds her rushing head-first into things like laughter and genuine friendship. 

She gets drinks with Melanie in a cheesy karaoke joint not far from the Archives one night and comes home to Basira with cheeks sore from smiling. Jon laughs at one of her terrible jokes and it’s so unexpected coming from him, his drawn face and nervous half-smiles and jumpy eyes, that she bursts out laughing twice as hard. It’s hardest when she’s alone, resisting the pull, so she busies herself in corners of occupied rooms and trails her friends around the Archives like a kicked puppy. They insist they don’t mind, all of them just happy to see her as something other than a rabid dog. Even the ever-elusive Martin lets her sit in on a statement or two, despite disappearing like smoke whenever someone else comes around. 

Spring gives way to the early days of summer, and the weight of Daisy’s secret starvation begins to suffocate her. Basira snaps at her one morning over something small, inconsequential, and she has to storm out of the apartment to get a handle on the anger that flash-bangs inside her, quick and deadly. It leaves her exhausted, barely awake enough to trudge home. Basira stands up from the couch as soon as she opens the front door, mouth thick with apologies,  _ I didn’t mean it, things have just been stressful lately, are you sure you’re alright? _ Daisy says nothing and sleeps until it’s dark outside, only waking up when Basira crawls into bed next to her.  _ I’m here,  _ she whispers, and Daisy wordlessly curls into her chest, doing her best not to come apart into pieces with every breath. 

The words are right there, within reach. She wants to tell Basira, to come out with it and finally put to rest her worried hands that won’t stop cooking for her, pulling the blankets tighter around them on the couch when she can’t quite seem to get warm, picking up the pieces of the latest thing she’d accidentally smashed because her hands just wouldn’t hold onto it. But Daisy sees the way she hates Jon’s descent into fevered, monstrous desire and more than anything, she’s afraid of Basira’s hatred. The pity she can manage, but the knife’s edge of rage at Jon’s helpless need, his  _ service, _ cuts Daisy to the bone. Would Basira take greater comfort in her accepting a slow death or in condemning her to a life of bloody animal instinct? A monster that’s at the very least alive, or a dead girlfriend?

Basira kisses her good-morning and good-night, steals her away to hidden broom closets in the Archives to kiss her breathless there, too, and always the warmth of her skin is chased by the cold bitterness of guilt. It leaves a sour aftertaste in Daisy’s mouth, an oil slick just beneath her skin where she’s always afraid Basira might find it if she catches the light just the wrong way. 

_ Basira,  _ she says one day, as they’re walking through the park hand-in-hand, giddy on warm evening air and the thick weight of a budding thunderstorm looming over them. She means to tell her just then, but the fiery haze of the setting sun halos Basira perfectly from behind and Daisy’s voice catches in her chest, rushing out in a stumbling  _ you’re beautiful _ instead. 

She tries twice more that same week. Both times, she looks at Basira and feels her heart crumble into a thousand pieces before she can force the words out, and ends up saying  _ I love you _ instead, like it’s some prayer that will save her from the inevitable.  _ I love you, I’m sorry, you deserve so much more. I love you. I love you. I’m doing this for you. I love you. _

It’s only when she finds herself wondering when she should start thinking about things in terms of lasts does Daisy finally drum up the courage to say something. It starts at some dirty dive-bar with Melanie,  _ last night out _ haunting the back of her head, the two of them slamming back shots and losing themselves in the push-and-pull of the crowd. She says it in the bathroom, a dismal, filthy place that’s barely big enough for the two of them.  _ I’m dying,  _ she says, stumbling out of the stall, confused by Melanie’s bark of laughter.  _ No, Melanie, I’m serious,  _ she says, and the drunken grin disappears from her face. Daisy tells her about the hunger, about the life sapping from her limbs. Melanie doesn’t say anything, just hugs her fiercely, in the same all-hard-edges way she does everything else. 

The rush of relief knocks the wind from her lungs and she clings to Melanie all the more tightly for it, fingers curling into the back of her shirt, the hair at the base of her neck. It doesn’t surprise either of them, then, when they end up stumbling backwards as one into the wall of the bathroom, kissing so hard Daisy feels like she’s coming apart. For the first time in a long time she doesn’t fear it, the falling to pieces, only knows that Melanie now knows the whole truth of her and can put each piece back in its place. 

Her lips taste like cigarettes and the cheap vodka they’ve been drinking, in the most fire-starter cliche way of all, and Daisy doesn’t think too hard about it. She doesn’t think about anything at all besides Melanie’s rough hands and the sting of her teeth and the breathless thrill in how they can’t keep their hands off each other the entire cab ride back to her place. They burst through her front door and leave a desperate trail of clothes all the way to her bed, tangling there with white-hot pleasure and the peace of forgetting for just a little while.

Daisy wakes with a nauseous start. The light is coming in at the wrong angle, and the ceiling is an unfamiliar color. Panic flutters in her chest for a moment before the night comes drifting back to her in blurry scraps. Melanie’s still asleep next to her, blue hair fanned on the pillow. 

She barely has time to lurch out of bed and find the toilet before she’s hunched over it, closing her eyes against a ferocious headache. Melanie finds her like this an indeterminate amount of time later, long enough that the shadows have shifted place from where they were last time Daisy looked up from the chilled ceramic.  _ You should probably call Basira,  _ she says, showing her a phone screen filled with missed texts and calls.  _ Basira, _ Daisy thinks, the guilt rising hot and fast and bringing another wave of nausea with it. 

As soon as she can move without the world spinning around her, Daisy searches frantically for several long minutes for her phone before coming upon it in her discarded pants’ pocket, dead. She plugs it in while Melanie goes about fixing breakfast in the kitchen, humming alongside the sound of the coffee machine and the quiet hiss of eggs in a pan. The domesticity should be comforting, but with Melanie’s brusqueness filling the spaces where Basira’s comforting hands should be, it just feels wrong. 

Her phone turns on and immediately starts buzzing to high heaven, notifications pouring in from a long night of Basira’s endless worry. Daisy scrolls through them, feeling more and more ill with each passing text. 

_ I’m sorry,  _ she types,  _ my phone died, I spent the night at Melanie’s. _ The response comes almost immediately in the form of a phone call, Basira’s voice spilling from the speaker in a rush of  _ oh-god-I-was-so-worried-call-next-time, _ Daisy mumbling apologies wherever she can get a word in edgewise. The world spins again as she finally hangs up, promising Basira she’ll be home soon, and Daisy can’t tell if it’s from the hangover or the guilt coating her stomach like molten lead. 

When she comes home, Basira is waiting for her. She wraps Daisy in a hug the second she steps through the front door and instantly, everything else melts away.  _ You look like shit,  _ she says into Daisy’s hair, the smile evident on her voice.  _ One too many, _ she says back, face hidden against Basira’s neck. 

Basira pulls back to hold Daisy at arm’s length.  _ I love you, _ she says, and Daisy searches her face for anything - for anger, fear, disappointment, any of it - and finds nothing but love reflected back at her.  _ Tell her, _ she thinks, and for the first time she’s not afraid of what she might say.  _ Basira, I… _ she hesitates, choking up, and forces herself to keep going.  _ I need to tell you something. _

So she does, right there. She doesn’t sugarcoat it, just tells her how it is and how things will end. She tells her about the awful ache and the way she wants, more than anything, to stay human. She tells her about Melanie, too, and that’s when she finally has to look away, when the pain in Basira’s eyes bubbles over into silent tears running down her cheeks.

It only takes a few minutes, but the silence that hangs between them afterwards feels like it goes on forever.  _ Daisy, _ she says, finally, her voice thick with tears.  _ Basira, _ Daisy starts, looking up at her, and Basira steps back so fast her voice dies right in her throat.

_ No, _ she says, taking another step back.  _ No, I don’t want-  _ a sharp exhale, holding back tears,  _ I need time. I’m sorry.  _

Then she’s gone. 

Her first instinct is anger, crashing around inside her like stormy waves on a rocky beach. What right does Basira have to be angry? It’s not like they’d ever talked about this, let alone set any boundaries. It’s Daisy that’s dying, for fuck’s sake! 

A growl rumbles low in the base of her throat, and all at once the realization that her blood is rushing in her ears slams Daisy back to cold reality. She scrambles for the kitchen sink and turns it on, sticking her face under the freezing water until she can’t feel anything else. Face dripping, hair plastered to her skull, and gasping for breath, she slumps to the floor and leans against the cabinets. Gasps quickly turn to sobs, and she sits there, curled into a ball with her head buried in her arms, crying until she doesn’t have any tears left in her. 

It’s almost a relief, the outpouring of emotion. Daisy didn’t realize how much she’s been forcing down until it all came flooding out, one great tsunami of everything she hasn’t wanted to feel. It leaves her exhausted, sinking into the couch to mindlessly flip through channels on the TV with the sound turned off. 

When Basira comes back, it’s dark out. The entire day has slid from sunup to sundown in a distant haze, and Daisy finds herself shaken back to reality when the doorknob turns. Her legs, folded beneath her for god knows how long, explode into pins and needles when she tries to stand, so she swallows a grimace and stays sitting as Basira walks in. 

She stops a few feet from Daisy, hesitating. Her face is carefully neutral, but even Basira’s best efforts can’t entirely get rid of the puffiness around her eyes from crying or the hard set of her brow that she only gets when intently focused. Daisy’s stomach plummets through the floor. 

_ Basira, I’m sorry,  _ she whispers, voice loud in the silence.  _ I should’ve told you sooner, I-  _ quick steadying breath, searching for the words,  _ I don’t want to be a monster anymore.  _ Her voice breaks at the same time the tension holding Basira back does, and they crash together twin waves of relief, each others’ anchors in a sea they’d tried and failed to weather alone. 

_ You’re not a monster,  _ Basira says,  _ you didn’t know what you were doing then. You were… controlled. Not yourself. You had no choice _ , and on that one she puts a warm hand to Daisy’s cheek. Daisy wants to argue, tell her she had a choice and she made it every time. That she loved the blood more than anything. That she’s  _ choosing _ to do this for Basira.  _ With Melanie, that was a choice, _ Basira says, and all of Daisy’s arguments evaporate. 

Basira falls asleep that night in bed next to her, and Daisy lays awake thinking monstrous things. The full moon hangs just outside the bedroom window, perfectly framed and so close she could touch it if she just reached out and tried. Night had been her favorite time to Hunt: the darkness is a good keeper of any secret you wish to hide within it, deep in a forest where nobody’s around to hear the gunshot. It made her prey half-blind and confused, stumbling around corners and brittle with panic. Daisy never had trouble seeing once they were in her sights, her eyes always growing just sharp enough and her nose always finding the stink of fear. 

She’d loved those nights the most, when things finally went from digging around in police records and intimidating witnesses to the hot, bright thrill of a real chase. The taste of blood fills her mouth and revulsion isn’t far behind. For once, the taste of it fills her with horror at the long trail of bodies and ruined lives stretching behind her instead of sick pride. She’d done well in covering her tracks, hiding most of her carnage from everyone, even Basira. She knew more than most, but the thought of her knowing just how horrifically bloody her past was, and how Daisy had reveled in it, makes her sick with disgust. 

Sleep comes fitfully in the small hours of the morning, and her dreams are full of bodies.

There’s distance between them after that. They still sleep together, Basira whispering calming things when Daisy’s thrashing nightmares wake her up, but it’s different. There’s no soft smiles and brushing of hands over morning coffee. No familiar weight of Basira’s arms around her waist when Daisy cooks for the two of them, only stilted conversation over dinner that devolves into the two of them sitting on opposite sides of the couch. 

Daisy hates that she’s relieved when Basira leaves for Ny-Ålesund. The apartment has gotten to be suffocating, neither of them quite sure how to navigate things. Basira’s always talking about some indeterminate future and catching herself, wincing when she talks about  _ next year _ or  _ someday _ and Daisy’s just as uncomfortable, walking on a tightrope to be the perfect victim of the Hunt that Basira so badly wants her to be. 

It’s better when she gets back, but not by much. Tensions are running high in the Archives, and Daisy and Basira can’t seem to escape it, no matter how hard they try. The heat of summer grows to be oppressive, thick and terrible and it exhausts Daisy, making the weakness that much worse. She shatters three glasses in a week and doesn’t have the energy to argue with Basira when she replaces every single glass left in the cabinet with plastic. 

They don’t argue, exactly, but some days they keep each other an arm’s length. Trying to remember how it felt the first time Basira kissed her, so soft and sweet and lovely, feels like trying to carry an ocean in her hands. Other days, it’s like nothing ever changed - Basira holds her close and Daisy melts into her touch, aches and worries no match for her sure, careful hands. 

Daisy can’t blame Basira for the way things start to fall apart, really. It can’t be easy juggling a dying girlfriend, a boss that’s feeding on the trauma of innocent people, and constant threat of attack or world-ending ritual. She wishes, sometimes, that she could find the energy to care more, but fear is just a half-step away from blood and she’s afraid she might be too weak to fight off the Hunt if it gets any closer than the ever-present dull ache that’s long since settled into her bones. 

The closest she comes to feeling much of anything in weeks is when Basira uses her as a weapon against Jon, a sort of  _ look at Daisy, isn’t her sacrifice heroic, she’s not a monster like you that loves tearing people apart.  _ It makes her sick to hear, and she has to steady herself against the wall as the blood begins to sing in her ears. She wants to shout that she loved every second of it, she did half of it for the thrill and not out of some instinct or compulsion, she’s not a  _ dog- _

Basira’s voice pulls her away from the Hunt as they leave Jon’s office. Daisy’s not sure if she noticed that there had been an inhuman growl trying to escape her chest so hard it felt like her ribs might crack open. Part of her thinks she might’ve imagined the way the floor tilted and threatened to swallow her whole. Another part of her remembers saying something, quietly, maybe a gentle refute of Basira’s insistence on her victimhood. It’s hard to think with the Hunt pulsing in her veins. She just focuses on the way Basira catches her arm when she stumbles and tries to steady her breathing.

In the days that follow Basira and Melanie’s revelation that Jon has been feeding just like she used to, Daisy feels the Hunt claw at her insides in a way it hasn’t since before the coffin. The hunger had kept everything washed in a hazy, dream-like sort of grey, but this is sharp and vivid. Basira rambles about Jon one night over dinner, the stress coming off her in waves. She catches herself midway through saying Jon should be  _ more like you, Daisy-  _ and Daisy doesn’t have to say  _ dying? _ to watch the weight of it hit Basira straight across the face. 

_ I’m sorry,  _ she says,  _ that’s not what I meant.  _ Daisy forces a smile and does her best to not let her hands shake when she does the dishes later. The dark, insidious ember in her stomach that always aches to be fanned into flame wants her to be angry that Basira is so willing to lean right into the Daisy she’s imagined for herself, frail and helpless in the clutches of the big, scary monster, too good to ever love the snap of bone in her teeth. This Daisy’s resistance is heroic, her agonizingly slow death a martyrdom. 

Daisy doesn’t want to spoil that for her. If Basira wants to believe that the person she’ll have to bury soon enough was a good one, Daisy will let her have that. She doesn’t have it in her to fight it. 

There comes a point - not a distinct one, more like a slow realization over a week or so - where Daisy realizes she’s been counting things in lasts. Not in the way of wondering and speculation, no  _ will this be the last? _ but instead regarding things in the coolly-detached light of goodbyes. She runs into Martin in the Archives one afternoon and he barely flicks a halfhearted smile her direction, but the finality of it sits with her for the rest of the day. Melanie takes her to their favorite karaoke bar and even though she only lasts a half-hour before leaving on excuse of a headache, Daisy hugs her extra-tight before she goes. 

She comes to think of it in the way of an hourglass only a few grains away from empty, and on the other side of that void lies either death or the Hunt. There’s no certainty what will happen when the last vestiges of her resolve drain from her, only that something will give way. Either weak flesh or too-human love, and Daisy isn’t eager to worry about which will die first. All that matters is that for now, Basira is here. 

Except Basira isn’t there when Jon calls her, panicked, and her chest aches at the sound of it. A burst of strength - vitality, like an old hound feeling young at the scent of blood one last time - propels her into his office, gives a firmness to the threats she makes at the Hunters she finds menacing Jon. They see right through Daisy’s brave front, of course they do, the three of them are too much the same for them not to. It’d be the smell that gives her away, anyway, the sweetness of infirmity that used to make her salivate.  _ Does  _ make her salivate. The threats roll off her tongue like liquid silver, the growl that follows them as the pair makes their retreat unsettling Jon almost as much as it does her. 

She slumps into the wall as soon as they’re gone, breathing hard. Every bone in her body wants to chase after them, but Daisy thinks of Basira and steadies herself as best she can.

_ I’m fine,  _ she tells Jon. Lie.  _ Just haven’t been hungry.  _ Lie.  _ I’m strong enough.  _

Lie.

They go to find Basira, and Jon tells her what happened while Daisy sinks into the couch in the break-room, torn between the suffocating haze of exhaustion and the surge of blood just beneath her skin, so tempting it sets her teeth on edge. 

The night finds her curled up in bed, wracked with shivers as a fever burns its way through her body. The Hunt’s punishment is merciless, sapping the strength from her limbs so quickly she can hardly hold her head up for Basira to tip cup after cup of water into her mouth. Her sleep is fitful, feverish, dream-like in only the worst ways. 

Elias stands in the doorway, watching her. He crosses the room and becomes Melanie’s blue hair and rough hands. She leans down to kiss Daisy and fills mouth her with maggots instead, so many she can’t even scream when the rotting body sits back up wearing Basira’s eyes. She’s visited by a parade of bodies after that, each one someone she’d killed. 

Morning comes and with the darkness of night goes her fever, leaving Daisy shaky and weak, but alive. Basira kisses her and it feels like a homecoming, the  _ I didn’t know if I’d ever get to do this again _ unspoken on both of their lips. They eat breakfast together leaning against the headboard, heavy with the sudden reality of Daisy’s ticking clock. 

When things finally fall apart, it catches both of them by surprise. 

_ Why didn’t you go after them? _ Basira asks, standing in the kitchen. It’s been a few days since Daisy’s confrontation with the other Hunters, and she’s feeling almost back to her usual self, as far as anything can be considered usual, now. 

_ What? _ Daisy answers, hoping she’d misheard the urgency in Basira’s voice but knowing she didn’t.

_ The Hunters. You could’ve taken them, easy.  _

The way she says it is supposed to be a joke, Daisy thinks. Like they used to on the job, back when the thought of meat didn’t make her queasy with matching hunger and revulsion. 

_ I can’t,  _ Daisy says. Won’t. 

_ Please.  _ The pain on her voice makes Daisy turn away. 

Basira doesn’t want her to die. Basira wants her to become a monster again. It takes every bit of strength in her to refuse, and that night, Basira sleeps on the couch. Daisy doesn’t sleep, instead letting Basira’s arguments run through her head on loop. She’s the only one that can find the Hunters and stop them before they attack again. She’s the only one that can keep them safe. She’s dying because her pride won’t let her be something she doesn’t want to be, but did any of them ever want to be what the Archives turned them into? 

How long is she really going to be able to hold out, anyway? How long before Basira isn’t enough to keep her anchored? What happens when she finally gives in? Death would be too merciful for the Hunt, at least by her own hands.  _ There’s only one way off a cliff,  _ Daisy thinks, and the cold finality of it lends the sleep that eventually finds her an almost peaceful quality.

She doesn’t think of it again in quite so black-and-white terms until the day Melanie gouges her eyes out. She hears the screams, they all do, and the ambulance’s sirens as they cart her away, too. They don’t talk about it, not openly, but they’re all thinking the same thing: could I? 

Daisy wonders what it would be like to be free, not waiting as the Hunt and the Archives battle for claim over her fate. 

The next morning, she tries to go through the motions of making coffee with her eyes closed, trying to imagine living out her last days in peace. Just the thought of it makes her heart swell - just her and Basira against the world, no monsters or world-ending rituals involved. They could do it, she thinks. Then she dumps grounds across the counter, and the water isn’t far behind, and the bubble bursts.

Basira finds her sitting on the kitchen floor staring out at the mess with tears in her eyes. She kisses her softly, so softly, like she’s saying good-bye. Daisy knows then how things will end: with Basira, the way she always knew they would. She thinks Basira has always known it, too. 

When the Hunt comes to life singing in her veins only days later, Daisy isn’t afraid.

_ Promise me,  _ she says. 

_ I promise,  _ Basira tells her. 

She doesn’t worry about what happens next. Basira knows what she needs, and that’s enough.

‘The last thing Daisy sees before the blood takes over is Basira fleeing around the corner.

**Author's Note:**

> my first tma fic! daisy has my whole entire heart & exploring her relationship with basira, the hunt, and her own humanity/mortality has been really interesting. i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it!!
> 
> very much love to charlie for being my wonderful cheeleader/beta (@risottobismarck on twit, check out their amazing art!!!)
> 
> come find me on twitter @dykeofthehunt! 
> 
> <3 <3 <3


End file.
